100, 75, 50 Years Ago

ANTWERP — Commander Chandler and the officers of the United States battleship Illinois to-day inspected the port of Antwerp. They were escorted by the city engineers, and their visit was a thorough one. Commander Chandler subsequently entertained the officials on board the Illinois. Applications for permission to visit the Illinois are pouring in by the thousand. The general public will be admitted onboard to-morrow, next Sunday and Monday, and on the Fourth of July. The call of the sea is loud to midshipmen, and with the rise in temperature twenty of those from the United States battleship Illinois who had been in Paris since Tuesday left yesterday for Ostend. Nearly half of the men remaining leave for Brussels to-day, and most of the rest will bid good-bye to Paris tomorrow morning.

1938 French Decree Increase for Fair

The original appropriation of 100.000.000fr. for French participation in the New York World’s Fair 1939 was increased by 48,250,000fr. (approximately $1,340,000) through one of thirty-one new decree laws published in yesterday’s “Journal Officiel.” Another decree, which is designed to protect French commerce, provides that henceforth, foreign business men authorized to engage in commerce or industry in France will be subjected to the same regulations that apply to foreigners, especially Frenchmen, in their native country. The decree also specifies that the government, if it deems it advisable, may set the percentage of foreigners who will be allowed to engage in each category of business in France. A third decree increases the tax on gasoline by 20 centimes a liter, while the taxes on oil are raised slightly. On the other hand, the tax on the manufacture of French automobiles will be abolished in the case of cars exported by the constructor directly and without intermediary.

1963 Kennedy Goes to Berlin Wall

BERLIN — West Berliners swarmed into their streets and squares today [June 26] to roar a wildly emotional welcome to President Kennedy, who told them that their indomitable courage will expand the borders of the free world. “This is a great day in the history of the city,” Mayor Willy Brandt shouted to scores of thousands who jammed the square in front of the Schoeneberg City Hall to applaud almost every sentence of a short, moving speech of encouragement by Mr. Kennedy. The speech, one of five the President delivered during a 33-mile, 71/2-hour tour of the West’s window on the Iron Curtain, drew the largest single throng on a day in which nearly 1.5 million of West Berlin’s 2.2 million citizens turned out to cheer the President. During his visit, Mr. Kennedy made two stops at the Communist wall dividing East and West Berlin — at the Brandenburg Gate and at Checkpoint Charlie. The ugly wall of concrete slabs, cinder blocks and barbed wire bulked large in the President’s tour. At both the Brandenburg Gate and at Checkpoint Charlie Mr. Kennedy mounted specially built platforms to peer over it. The President looked grim and intent as Allied officers used charts to brief him on points of interest, including guard stations used by the East German vopos (people's police). Fresh from this experience, the President told the crowd outside the City Hall: “While the wall is the most obvious and vivid evidence of the failures of the Communist system ... we take no satisfaction in it. For it is, as your mayor has said, an offense not only against history but against humanity.” In the City Hall square, the roar was deafening when Mr. Kennedy stepped forward to speak. The crowd began a chant — Ken-ne-dee — that played counterpoint to the rumbling applause that greeted every sentence of his speech. It reached a crescendo when the President recalled that the proudest boast of the ancient world was “civis Romanus sum,” (I am a Roman citizen). Now in the world of freedom, he said, in bad but fearless German, “the proudest boast is ‘Ich bin ein Berliner”’ (I am a Berliner). Berlin has been in the front lines of freedom for almost two decades, the President said in his conclusion, and “all free men are citizens of Berlin and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.”’

A version of this article appears in print on June 27, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune. Today's Paper|Subscribe